Second-guessing out of place
23 January 2006 - Orange County Register

All of this second-guessing about Bill Hill’s action to protect his family is unbelievable. He saw an armed predator (unless anyone thinks a carnivore’s claws and teeth aren’t weapons?) on his property and in close vicinity to his house and his neighbor’s. In that situation, no one is a more "proper authority" than the property owner. Letter-writer Thomas Chao had it right when he said that should the lion have attacked someone (as has happened before, all too recently), the outcry over inaction would have been just as bad.

Chao lost many of us, however, when he counseled readers not to "question the legality of Hill owning and using a firearm" because "he was a trained law enforcement officer." Every American, police officer or otherwise, has a legal right to own a firearm, and a moral obligation to protect their families from predators, human and animal alike.

Obviously letter-writer Christine Tillemans thinks homeowners don’t have that right and obligation, as she accuses Hill of committing a crime by "shooting a firearm in a residential area." Fortunately the law allows for a law-abiding resident to fire in self-defense on his own property - or does Tillemans think it would have been just as much a crime if Hill found an armed human predator on his property and defended his family from him?